I love patties. and all form of meat in pastry. and also: Food Anthropology! Thanks for the little lesson, Goddess
THIS MEAT-FILLED PASTRY IS QUITE TRICKY!
Depending on what country and what you end up filling these pastry pockets (and even what kind of pastry or sometimes dough you use to make it) with, I guess no one can really call it one specific name.
If you live in Jamaica, Britain, Canada, New York City or South Florida where this pastry baby is filled with cooked ground beef (or chicken or seafood), flavored and seasoned with pungent spices and mixed with vegetables or cheese, then there is no doubt you call this a Patty.
Now, if you fill this pastry with uncooked beef, diced potatoes, yellow turnips and onions, only season the filling with salt and pepper, and you are well advised and obliged to fold the pastry over the filling and shape it like a “D” then daintily crimp only one side of it, and finally baked it (with strict rules to make the pastry keep its “D” shape when baked and cooled) and you often munch on this while you happily live in the Southwest of England, United Kingdom then by all means call it a Pasty.
If for some reason, you tasted some Latin or South European flare in the filling… say you suddenly munched on some bits of chopped salty olives, a few beads of sweet raisins and some tomato or any by-product of tomato as part of the filling along with a flaky pastry that is either fried or baked, then you are absolutely feasting on an Empanada (Ay, yay, yay… Muy Delicioso!!!… translation: SAVE SOME FOR ME… NO I DON’T WANT THAT EMPANADA YOU JUST BITTEN!). Empanada is a stuffed pastry that is baked or fried in almost all Latin American countries, some countries in Southeast Asia like the Philippines (introduced by the Spanish colonialists) and Indonesia (introduced by the Portugese), and South European countries like Spain and Portugal, where the Empanada trace its origins.
As some of you might remember, I made this exact “savory stuffed pastry” a week ago with a filling of chicken, bechamel sauce, mixed vegetables and cheese. And I called it Chicken Pastel Empanada. Pastel is a casserole dish (made usually with chicken meat) and baked in a pie crust. Obviously, I did not made my pastry sleep on a pie plate. So to justify my kitchen science project, I just called the darn thing Empanada! :D
